It’s wild to think back to the early days of cannabis, with limited flower strains and almost solely DIY, at-home edibles to look at the wide variety of options consumers have at their fingertips today. Ironically, one of the newer innovations in the cannabis space has seen some of the most significant innovations just in the last decade: cannabis concentrates.
In the modern-day cannabis space, the list of concentrate options continues to grow. What started with hash has branched out into shatter, wax, and budder to more potent and flavorful options like live resin, live rosin, distillate, and even diamond sauce.
You’ve likely heard of THC diamonds and diamond sauce. The top-tier concentrate has taken the cannabis world by storm, but as we compare it to the wider array of options, you may find yourself wondering exactly what distinguishes this product from others.
Key Takeaways
- Diamond sauce is the most potent form of concentrated cannabis, testing as high as 99.9% THC.
- Diamond sauce is basically a mix of weed diamonds and terpene sauce, offering a strong concentrate with plenty of flavor and cannabinoids.
- Diamond sauce has a number of distinctions from other high-potency concentrates and should be approached with caution, especially for new consumers and those with a low THC tolerance.
What Are Sauce and Diamonds?
To understand diamond sauce, it helps to break things down a little further:
What are Weed Diamonds?
Weed diamonds, or THC diamonds, are terms that describe highly concentrated cannabis extracts that tend to be top-tier when it comes to potency. THC diamonds are the purest concentrates on the market, with many testing up to 99% THC.
For perspective, live resin and live rosin are also considered some of the most potent cannabis concentrates, though they typically test between 70% and 90%, with very few live resin products inching into the low-to-mid 90s before hitting “diamond” status at higher potencies.
They’re named for their sparkling, diamond-like appearance, and the high purity makes these concentrates practically transparent.
What is Terp Sauce?
Terp sauce, sometimes called cannabis sauce or terpene sauce, is known (as one might think) for its rich terpene profile. Terpenes are the flavor and aroma compounds found in hemp and cannabis plants, along with countless other plants, foods, and flowers found in nature.
Terp sauce is made through a specialized extraction process meant to preserve the terpenes found in cannabis. The end result is a thick, sauce-like substance with high concentrations of terpenes, cannabinoids, and terp gems — small, crystal-like concentrates that further enhance the flavor, aroma, and effects of the sauce.
What is Diamond Sauce?
Diamond sauce is essentially a mix of THC diamonds and terp sauce in one product.
It’s similarly known for its high potency and crystalline appearance, undergoing a stringent extraction process to separate cannabinoids from the original plant material. After the extract undergoes a purification process to remove impurities and other unwanted compounds, it’s placed in a controlled environment, where the cannabinoids crystallize over time, creating the iconic diamond-like structures that they’re named for within the sauce.
Diamond sauce primarily consists of THC, though it generally has plenty of other cannabinoids and is rich in flavorful terpenes.
How is Diamond Sauce Made?
One way of understanding the extraction process behind diamond sauce is that it’s simply adding some additional steps to the process of making live resin.
Live resin is another high-potency cannabis concentrate with plenty of flavor, and this is because it is flash-frozen rather than cured. This process allows live resin to maintain much of the cannabis plant’s natural essence, namely the cannabinoids, terpenes, and other crucial cannabis compounds, as it preserves the trichomes present in the original cannabis plant.
After freezing the plant material, it’s exposed to a solvent that extracts all of those sweet, sought-after compounds. Shortly after, the crystallization process begins, with a small amount of solvent left in the extract to purge out over a minimum of 48 hours. The result is a sauce that spontaneously causes the crystallization of THCa.
What is the Difference Between Diamonds, Live Resin, and Distillate?
So yes, THC diamonds and diamond sauce are essentially a more potent category of live resin.
Most live resin has a saucy texture and some crystallization, though it’s often not as clear or as heavy in crystals as THC diamonds and diamond sauce, solely because it lacks the high purity and potency that diamonds have to offer (even though live resin is still especially potent in its own respect). Live resin similarly contains plenty of terpenes, making it one of the more flavorful concentrates you’ll find — arguably bested only by live rosin.
Distillates tend to be very high in THC potency as well, though they're odorless and flavorless due to their specific extraction process. Distillate undergoes a process known as "short-path distillation", which isolates each cannabis compound separately. The main distinction between distillate, live resin, and diamonds is that distillate lacks terpenes altogether. It is still very potent and high in THC, and it is sometimes blended or reintroduced with terpenes for vaping and other products to give it some flavor.
Does Diamond Sauce Get You High?
While you’ll have to heat up your diamonds to reap the benefits, the high amounts of THC ensure that you will indeed get high if you smoke or vape diamonds or diamond sauce. THC is psychoactive and responsible for the “high” users feel when they smoke weed, so unless you have a titan-like tolerance, odds are that you will get high if you consume diamond sauce.
Because diamond sauce is so incredibly potent, it’s recommended to start with smaller doses if you are trying it for the first time — even if you’ve already tried other cannabis concentrates. There is a huge difference in potency between concentrates like wax or shatter, which on their own are much more potent than cannabis flower, and diamond sauce.
Is Diamond Sauce Safe?
All of this talk of pure THC and high-potency extracts may have you wondering how safe diamond sauce is to consume. Diamond sauce is indeed safe, but it’s truly up to consumer discretion to determine if they are equipped for the experience that comes with diamond sauce.
For example, a first-time edible consumer will probably stick with a smaller dose, perhaps 5 mg, if they are looking to dive in — instead of eating a full-size, 100 mg chocolate bar. If you’ve never smoked weed, you may try a single puff and sit on that for a few minutes before deciding if you need more — rather than smoking an entire joint by yourself.
Similarly, if you have smoked flower and are trying out cannabis concentrates for the first time, it may be best to try out a wax, shatter, budder, or lower-potency live resin before diving right into the deep end with diamonds.
The good news is that, even if you get too high, you cannot “overdose” in the traditional sense on THC, and any unpleasant effects are temporary.
Final Thoughts
For experienced cannabis consumers looking for a flavorful, potent experience, diamond sauce is the way to go. It contains more THC than any other cannabis concentrate, it’s gorgeous to behold, and the flavor can’t be beat. The extraction process is similar to that of live resin, though it is distinct from live resin and distillate in a number of ways.
It’s also not for everyone, and many consumers may want to work their way up before jumping right into vaping or smoking diamond sauce. But if you’re up for the task, the rewards are plentiful!